2. Data rules the modern world. Banks need data, military needs data, scientists need data, & physicians need data.
Sometimes there’s good reasons to hide data, during military conflicts or for commercial exploitation, but there’s no excuse for it during a major pandemic.
3. CCA legislation imposes duty to inform the British public regarding civil emergencies. We get that judges don’t want to unduly fetter the executive during a crisis, but a crisis is when our constitution is tested. This is a rare opportunity to clarify legal effects of the CCA.
4. Plus there will likely be a 2nd wave and future pandemics. Therefore imperative that we have clarity on exactly what information a democratic govt must reveal to the British people when their businesses, housing, education and indeed their lives are put at risk.
5. We also believe that a democratically elected government has a general duty of transparency under Freedom of Information legislation.
We need independent scientific scrutiny of the data to identify & explore novel solutions to this unprecedented public health challenge.
6. For all these reasons, we hope that @LeighDay_Law, @TomRHickman & our formidable legal team will establish transparency regarding UK preparedness for #Covid19.
Political advantage must not outweigh scientific considerations during a pandemic – there’s just too much at stake.
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1. The "statutory instrument" plan to regulate Physician Associates by @GMCuk isnt going to wash. Stat instruments are delegated powers to implement legislation - cant go against Parliament's stated purpose to regulate "the medical profession".
@TheBMA @EveryDoctorUK @TheDA_UK
2. You'd have to cross out paragraph after paragraph of the Medical Act to extend it to Physician Associates, for instance its stated remit is to regulate doctors who have passed rigorous medical qualifications. They're basically writing a new Act, stat instruments cant do that.
3. BMA should challenge this in court, but GMC should also be doing more to protect patients. Physician associates have a valid role to play in healthcare delivery, but they're an American import and the risks to patients are well-described in the USA. reliasmedia.com/articles/14817…
1/5 Wonky logic here. It's not like we’re withdrawing labour from a factory-owner and decreasing his company profits. We’re withdrawing our labour from a service which its owners actually want to fail. Standard economic strategies therefore become inoperative. https://t.co/2DkMk82bhc
2/5 Govt is *happy* that NHS Trusts have forked out £1 billion, that waiting lists are growing - this allows them to accelerate transfer to private sector and predictably blame *greedy* consultants. bbc.co.uk/news/health-64…
3/5 No electoral incentive for Tories to capitulate either because Labour Party leadership is funded by private health and they want NHS to fail too.
More NHS fails, more cash they can funnel to their donors to "fix" the problem by diverting public money into private profit.
1/14 Insurance models of healthcare (European-style of course, we'd never let USA get near NHS!) have been proposed in UK for decades. Difference is that NHS is now on its knees, so arguments for insurance are getting louder. But let's look at @KateAndrs position in more detail.
2/14 Firstly, insurance adds layer of bureaucracy which is intrinsically more costly than tax-funded healthcare. Insurance costs include actuarial analysis, cost of billing, cost of collecting, legal costs, admin, etc.
3/14 Secondly, insurance schemes deliver profit by excluding high-cost customers. But Nobel prizewinners eg Arrow & Sen explained insurance companies can't predict healthcare costs for patients accurately, vitiating the efficiency of market competition. They have to over-charge.
3/9 Even after all the deaths, important questions remain unanswered. Govt *definitely* has secret triage policy - who'll be chosen to live & who'll be allowed to die if NHS overwhelmed by pandemic?
What kind of democracy keeps policy like that secret?
2/8 ..Marianne Griffiths built perhaps the best learning culture I saw anywhere in the NHS."
Marianne retired from @UHSussex chief exec role, awarded a DBE, wait till I tell you her new job. Findlay's been promoted from medical director to chief exec. Everybody's happy!
Except.
3/8 It turns out two senior Brighton surgeons warned @UHSussex that patients' lives were at risk. The two surgeons (Dr Singh and Dr Foroughi) then got sacked.
A disciplinary hearing chaired by Findlay said Foroughi was dismissed because he'd acted in bad faith.
1/6 In 2016, Simon Stevens chief exec of @NHSEngland addressed World Economic Forum at @Davos. His speech "Mastering the 4th Industrial Revolution" spoke about replacing medics with AI... So far, such efforts have failed despite massive investment, though specialities like...
2/6 radiology & histopathology are definitely at risk.
Trend for several years has been to favour "expert" guidelines over independent clinical thinking. Often these guidelines are written by junior consultants with "ghost" professors in the authors list, and the primary...
3/6 evidence (eg trial data) for recommendations can be weak. But the point is that guidelines are authoritative and encourage doctors to switch their brains off. That's all part of the future automated "AI" workflow. Apprentice doctors straight out of high school...